1. Field of Disclosure
The present disclosure relates generally to cellular networks and specifically to the handing over of a cellular device from one cell member to another cell member.
2. Related Art
The demand for wireless data consumption has increased exponentially to such a level that sparsely placed outdoor macro base stations can no longer provide sufficient wireless service coverage to support the increased demand for wireless data. The quantity of smart phones, smart tablets, and laptops that are accessing social networks, online gaming, streaming online videos, and other traditional personal computer applications that are now available on cellular devices have put a significant strain on the traditional wireless infrastructure supported by macro base stations. Adding more macro base stations to the wireless infrastructure to meet the demand for wireless data consumption is often times not feasible. Macro base stations are expensive and require a significant amount of outdoor space which often times is unavailable particularly in urban areas. A smaller and more cost effective cellular base station for the wireless infrastructure is required.
Femtocells are small, short range base stations acting as indoor cellular access points for residential buildings or small offices. It is desired the femtocells to maintain continuous wireless connectivity for cellular devices as the cellular devices leave the coverage area of a first macro base station and enter the coverage area of a femtocell base station. The femtocells should maintain the continuous wireless connectivity via handovers from the macro base stations and/or from other femtocells. Handover is the procedure by which a cellular device seamlessly switches between different base stations during a connection to the network so that the connection is not interrupted during the switch.
Conventionally, a core network includes various combinations of macrocells and femtocells. The core network identifies various access points that support macrocells and femtocells using various identifiers. Often, these various network identifiers are not unique. Rather, in some situations, the same identifier can be used to identify more than one access point. As a result, the core network cannot be able to uniquely identify the access point. This is particularly troubling when handovers are performed in the core network. Large quantities of femtocells deployed in the same area can cause ambiguity to the core network with regard to which femtocell the core network should execute the handover to for a cellular device leaving the coverage area of a neighboring macro base station and/or femtocell. This ambiguity can result in the core network executing a handover for the cellular device to a femtocell that the cellular device is not within the coverage of. This can result in a disconnection from the wireless network and an interruption in the wireless service for the cellular device.
The present disclosure will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the drawings, like reference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and/or structurally similar elements. The drawing in which an element first appears is indicated by the leftmost digit(s) in the reference number.